The SAVE Act showdown

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next, on The World and Everything in It: the SAVE America Act.

Nearly a year since it passed the House, a voting reform bill is set to head to the Senate floor today.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But it’s running into partisan headwinds and new pressures from the White House to add more.

WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta has the story from our Washington bureau.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: With the midterm elections coming this fall, the bill has become a top item on President Trump’s lengthy to-do list. 

Here he is giving the task to Congress at this year’s State of the Union address:

TRUMP: …to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections, it's rampant. It's very simple: all voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.

The House first passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE Act, last April. But it has stalled in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to overcome a certain filibuster by Democrats.

Trump has begun calling it the SAVE America Act—the name of a separate House bill still in committee that goes even farther. 

Jason Snead is the executive director of the Honest Elections Project and he supports federal election reforms.

SNEAD: So the newly rebranded SAVE America Act is a little bit more comprehensive in the sense that it requires both proof of citizenship to register, and voter identification in order to cast a ballot. That aligns with best practices that we have identified for decades now in the election space.

Accepted proofs include a passport, a REAL ID, birth certificates, and marriage licenses if last names have changed. 

Democrats criticize the plan as “Jim Crow 2.0,” comparing it to post-Civil War era, racially discriminatory laws. They argue it would disenfranchise minority voters who they claim do not always have easy access to such documents.

Snead disagrees:

SNEAD: We're always working to keep it easy to vote in the United States, but we also need to make it hard to cheat.

If the SAVE Act passes, it could change the proof requirements for the upcoming midterm elections. Trump posted on Truth Social that he will not sign any other legislation until the act gets through Congress.

TRUMP: It's certainly a very popular thing. I don't think there's ever been a bill that's more popular than the Save America Act.

But here’s what the president wants added: a ban on mail-in ballots except in rare instances, a ban on men competing in women’s sports, and a ban on transgender surgeries on minors. None of that is currently in the legislative text of the SAVE Act. And the president’s new wish list has some supporters worried.

CUCCINELLI: And every time you add a new item to a bill, you don't pick up yes votes, you pick up no votes.

Ken Cuccinelli is the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, and he briefly worked in the first Trump administration. He’s lobbied for this bill, but he’s not sold on the new elements Trump wants.

CUCCINELLI: I don't disagree with the president on any of those issues. Nonetheless, we believe that simplicity allows a greater prospect for passage of the core elements of the SAVE Act, which are the voter ID and the citizenship verification for voters registering to vote.

A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that 75% of Americans support requiring proof of citizenship, and 81% support requiring photo identification. 

But other elements of the bill are not quite as popular. With more than half of Americans in favor of voting by mail, efforts to restrict it could face opposition.

Majority Leader John Thune said on Thursday he can’t guarantee the outcome of the vote: 

THUNE: But I can guarantee you that we are going to put Democrats on the record. That they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues and explain to the American people why common sense and the Democratic Party have parted ways.

If a majority of Senators approve a motion to proceed today, it opens the floor for a period of limitless debate. But Thune is not allowing what’s known as a talking filibuster, which would lower the threshold for passage from 60 votes to a simple majority. 

Instead, any senator may propose as many amendments as he or she would like. And Democrats have promised to use that as a delay. 

Here’s Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER: It's an outrageous bill, an outrageous bill. And we're going to fight it tooth and nail.

If the Senate adds any amendments to the bill, including provisions the president wants, it will head back to the House for another vote.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

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